Shepard's Logs: Mass Effect 1
by Bowie Hawkins
Summary: Mass Effect 1, as recorded in the personal logs of Lt. Commander R. Hannah Shepard.
1. Onward to Eden Prime

**2 January, 2183:** Captain Montgomery called me into her office this afternoon to tell me that I had been offered the position of XO on the Normandy – that new ship that the turians helped us build. And what's better is that Captain Anderson will be my CO. I haven't seen him since my N7 graduation, so I'm excited. More than a little nervous, though … this is the highest-profile position to come my way since I reentered the service after Akuze. But I guess that if I needed a reminder that I'm not that scared, broken thing that barely made it out of that hell, this qualifies. We're meeting the Normandy at the Charon relay in ten days. It will be good to see you again, sir.

**11 January, 2183:** My fire team threw me a going-away party in the mess. Not sure exactly how much I drank. Managed to stop myself from kissing Vasquez. Damn anti-fraternization regs. Haven't been touched by anyone in months. Will have to take long hot shower to start sweating out the booze. Must be on top form tomorrow.

**12 January, 2183:** Thanks to a few aspirin and Dad's genetics, was able to present myself to Captain Anderson and assume my post without embarrassing myself (thanks, Dad!) Anderson introduced me to the turian observer, Nihilus. He's not just any observer, either; he's a Council Spectre. I kept noticing that he seemed to be staring at me a lot, but who can really tell with turians? Of all the Council races, they're the ones that are hardest to read. I asked Anderson why we had a Spectre aboard, but all he can tell me for now is that he can't tell me anything about that until we're closer to Eden Prime. This flight is going to be the longest twenty hours ever.

**12 January, 2183:** Spent the first few hours of the flight getting to know the command staff and the guys in my squad. The pilot insists upon being called "Joker", apparently because he thinks he has a sense of humor. Not sure yet whether I agree with him on that. Navigator Pressley is stiff and formal, even for a lifer in the service, but that may just be because he was hoping for the XO slot and is still unhappy about not getting it. Doctor Chakwas is the Normandy's chief medical officer. If Anderson is the father to the ship's crew, she's definitely the mother. She gives off the aura of somebody who's seen it all, and it's entirely possible she has. Lt. Alenko is a biotic, which should prove handy in the field. That voice, though … if I can stop picturing myself tearing off his uniform and doing things that would get us court-martialed when I listen to him talk, I think we'll do well. Cpl Jenkins has a solid record, but he's so very gung-ho about the idea of getting into firefights. Was I ever that young and enthusiastic? If so, I apologize to every single one of my COs, ever. Must get some sleep; have to be rested before we reach Eden Prime.

**14 January, 2183:** Wow. Anderson finally told me our mission parameters. They discovered an intact prothean beacon on Eden Prime, and I and my squad will be working with Nihilus to retrieve it. No wonder they sent the Normandy – our ECM suite is the most effective stealth tech in the entire Alliance fleet, and this is something that needs to be gotten to the Council as quietly as possible. But the really big surprise is that I was chosen to be a candidate for the Spectres. Sorry, Kaidan, but all of those dirty little daydreams of you will have to stay just that. I can't afford to let humanity down by screwing up this chance the Council is giving me. I can't let Anderson down – I know he had to have gone to bat for me on this. And I can't afford to let myself down, either. Almost at Eden Prime, so I have to go get suited up. I'll update this further when I get back.


	2. In Transit: Eden Prime To the Citadel

**15 January, 2183: **Throat still raw from waking up screaming. I wish I knew what that prothean thing did to me. They tell me I was asleep for fifteen hours after I got hit by the energy discharge. I'm not sure which is worse: If I never manage to remember exactly what was in the dreams I had, or if I do. I saw – I guess they must have been protheans? And some sort of machines attacking them. Guh! All that screaming in the vision, though. It was like the screaming that we heard when Saren's ship was lifting off. God help me, it was like the screaming on Akuze. Anderson says that we're on our way to the citadel so I can deliver my report on what Saren did. We'll be there in three days. I just hope I can sleep on the way, and that I don't dream about any of that again. I'm so sorry, Jenkins.

**16 January, 2183:** Talked to Alenko about what happened on Eden Prime. He tried to say and do all the right things that people say and do after you've experienced that kind of loss, but it sounded the same as when anybody else who hasn't been through it before does it. Guh! Not fair, Hannah. Just because he wasn't in command, that doesn't mean he wasn't affected too. I hope I wasn't too much of a bitch when he was just trying to make me feel better. After Alenko, I ran into Williams. She was transferred onto Normandy to fill Jenkins' place since the rest of her unit were killed by the geth. I hope I was able to be more comfort to her than Alenko was to me; I think so, at least. I could recognize the survivor's guilt in her eyes from all those times I've seen it in the mirror, but there's something else there I can't place. Not going to press her, though. If it matters, and she wants to, she'll tell me. But why can't I stop thinking about how she smelled like strawberries? So tired, but when I try closing my eyes I start seeing the visions again. Will ask Chakwas for something to help me sleep without dreaming. Will hope like hell it works.

**17 January, 2183:** Chakwas told me that the drug she was giving me would block my brain from slipping into REM sleep. Either Chakwas lied, or the prothean data was able to play itself back despite that. At least I didn't wake up screaming this time, though – I still felt the trauma and panic from the visions, but at least they didn't wake up all those old memories from Akuze this time. It doesn't make much more sense that it did before, but I can tell this much: It's a warning from the protheans about what destroyed them. That ship Saren had is connected somehow, but I'm not absolutely sure how yet. Spent some time sparring with Alenko and Williams in the Mako bay to build unit cohesion. Alenko talked about serving with Jenkins; Williams about her time with the 212. They asked about Akuze. I told them about the twenty hours and one kilometer of hell I had to claw my way through to get out of there. I think this squad may go far. Must sleep now; we reach the Citadel in ten hours.


	3. Citadel: Arrival And Promotion

**18 January, 2183:** Wearing my dress blues for the presentation to the Council, and have prepared my testimony. I just wish Alenko and Williams hadn't let Powell get away; hopefully that won't hurt our case too badly though.

* * *

Guh! The council didn't even want to listen! Saren blew smoke up their smug, pompous asses, they made noises about rejecting my Spectre candidacy if I didn't shut up about it, and that was it. Goddamn politicians! We got a lead on a C-Sec officer though, named Vakarian, who is apparently the only non-human who thinks Saren is anything other than a saint. I'll be taking the squad to find Vakarian – hopefully he'll have what we need to bring Saren to justice for all the deaths on Eden Prime.

* * *

Our lead on Vakarian was a C-Sec burnout named Harkin who had a bug up his ass about Anderson. When he wasn't trying to make it look like he knew something about the Captain, he was leering at me like he could see through my uniform. I'm still not sure whether I'm happy that he didn't try to grab my ass, or sad that he didn't and give me a reason to break his arm. When we found Vakarian, he told us that he was resigning from C-Sec because he couldn't deal with the BS that they kept putting in the way of investigations like the one he was conducting on Saren. Apparently there's a quarian who has proof of Saren's crimes, and a local crime boss named Fist has her under his thumb. I could have kissed Vakarian for that, if his mandibles wouldn't have sliced my lips open. Vakarian suggested recruiting a krogan that's on the station who has a beef with Fist, and I made arrangements to meet the two of them at a club named Chora's Den at 21:00. I ordered Alenko and Williams to stay aboard the Normandy so that, if this goes badly, it won't hurt their careers. Williams gave me a look when I said that – I'll have to ask her what was up with that at some point when Saren's not taking priority.

**19 January, 2183:** Fist had tried to sell the quarian to Saren, but Wrex, Vakarian, and I rescued her. Her name is Tali, and she managed to recover a partially-intact memory core from a geth that had a recording of Saren planning the attack on Eden Prime. Even the high-and-mighty turian councilor wasn't able to ignore that. Take that, you scaly bastard! Not sure I like Ambassador Udina much better than any of the Councilors, but I have to give him credit: he didn't just settle for getting Saren's Spectre status revoked; he got the Council to make me one, and I get to be the one who brings Saren in to face justice for his crimes. It's going to take a couple of days to get all the paperwork done, so I'm at liberty until my investment ceremony at 17:00 on the 21st. First I'm going to get some sleep, and then I think I'll do a little sightseeing with Alenko and Williams.

**20 January, 2183:**Anderson was already off the Normandy in a meeting with Udina when the squad was heading out, so Pressley asked me to run it to him at the embassy. After dropping that off, I overheard an elcor in the embassy next door raising its voice about something, and since I didn't think that sort of thing was possible, I had to go look into that. Turns out that a member of the elcor diplomatic staff thought that the asari Consort Sha'ira was giving away his secrets. I went to talk to the consort as much because I've always wondered what it was that people saw in the asari as anything else, but when I met Sha'ira, she said that a turian general who'd gotten too attached to her was spreading rumors. I agreed to talk to him on her behalf. He was at Chora's Den (I was impressed at how good a job they'd done of cleaning the place up after the firefight we had with Fist's people – seriously, wow), and I thought Alenko was either going to snap his neck from all the staring he was doing at the dancers, or walk into something or someone big enough to break it for him. At first the general was all wounded male pride about Sha'ira not feeling the same way about him that he does about her, but I was able to bring him around by talking to him Marine to solider. He admitted that he had discovered the elcor's secret, and he was the one who had spread it. He gave me a data packet that proved this, and when I took it to the elcor embassy, they assured me that they would get him to drop his complaints against her. Going to go meet Wrex and Vakarian for dinner now. I'm going to offer them a chance to help me hunt Saren down, and then I'll turn everybody loose and go let Sha'ira know that I was able to straighten things out.

* * *

Sha'ira thanked me for everything I'd done, and gave me a pendant as a gesture of her thanks. Then she touched my cheek, and it's so long since anybody had touched me like that that one thing led to another, and … wow. Ok, now I understand the fascination. Going to go get a shower, and then meet some of the guys in the mess hall for poker.


End file.
